Laurin612
-
Posts
827 -
Joined
Content Type
Forums
Store
Blogs
Downloads
Events
Gallery
Posts posted by Laurin612
-
-
We took a Norwegian fjords cruise two summers ago on Costa in a suite (with free drink packages) and did not pay anywhere near that--for four people! But we booked very early.
-
My husband and I are the same way--we only book excursions with the cruise line. On a Princess Panama Canal cruise probably 12 years ago, there were extreme delays with the ferry boat on our partial transit Panama Canal excursion and we returned to the ship more than two hours late! Fortunately, we had booked with the cruise line and they were waiting for us (and the 100+ other passengers from the ship that were also on the excursion.) It was kind of embarrassing with everyone who had a balcony room and people on the open decks watching us return to the ship and clapping, whistling, etc., but, hey, it was't our fault! On that same cruise, we had an excursion to the Xunantunich Mayan ruins in Belize--and the bus broke down, causing us to be 30 minutes late! Again, thankfully we had booked with the cruise line and the ship waited for us. After those two experiences, we decided it was worth the extra cost (and peace of mind) to book the excursions with the cruise line rather than roll the dice and potentially be left behind.
We always get balcony rooms and enjoy watching sailaways (and pier runners) from the comfort of our balcony. Most recently we saw a van load of people get left behind in the Bahamas. The ship had waited about 30 additional minutes and repeatedly honked the ship's horn and called the names of the missing passengers on the PA system to no avail. When the ship started pulling away and was maybe 30 feet away from the pier, we saw a van drop a bunch of passengers off at the end of the pier. The passengers ran, yelled and waved their arms wildly, but it was no use--they were late and were left behind.
-
...Much easier for a kid to do that with a soda card instead of a $2 soda paid for out of his vacation fund allowance. ;)
One thing I wanted to mention is that a can of soda on board is now about $4 per can with gratuity added.
-
*Note to self: Don't ever book a "Guarantee" room!*
It sounds to me like RC is trying to shoehorn as many people as possible onto the ship by adding rollaway beds and pushing the occupancy limits by forcing people in guarantee rooms to accept them.
My family cruised in a suite on Costa two summers ago and willingly accepted a rollaway bed. It will be fine, we said. My husband and I shared the large bed, our 18 yo daughter had the sofa bed and our 14 year old son had the rollaway bed. I don't know if the rollaway beds are better on RC, but the one on Costa was fairly comfortable but seemed kinda flimsy. It collapsed and we had to have the room steward get us another one. It was also a hassle because they put it right in front of our closets and you had to climb over the rollaway bed (or fold it up) to get to anything in the closet.
-
Hi All,
This may be a loaded question but how old is too old to cruise? We are considering taking a family cruise for my grandmother's 90th Birthday. She will actually be 90.5 by the time we go. Would you feel comfortable bringing a 90 year old on a cruise if they are in fairly good health but did have a double bypass a few years earlier? My main concern is that she has reactive blood pressure so that would be our biggest concern. We so badly want her to be able to do this but is it unrealistic? Please, be gentle with your replies. Not looking to start a major debate. Thank you!
In my opinion there is no age that is "too old" to cruise. I think what it boils down to is asking your grandmother's doctor whether she is healthy enough to cruise.
Sent from my iPhone using Forums
-
My kids are now 16 and almost 20 and we’ve been cruisingwith them since the younger one was 3. Ithink it depends on your kids and what they like to drink. My 16 year old athlete son does not drinksoda at all, but drinks a ton of bottled water. My 19 year old daughter drinks soda and is also particular about hercoffee. They both enjoy mocktails whileon vacation. For our upcoming 12 dayBritish Isles cruise, we purchased the Refreshment package so they could havebottled water, soda, fancy coffee drinks, fresh squeezed OJ at breakfast andvirgin frozen drinks. We purchased the packages during a sale and itended up being $17 a day pp (plus gratuities). I know my daughter will drink at least two coffee drinks a day ($4-5isheach) and several frozen drinks ($4-5 each), in addition to the fresh squeezedOJ at breakfast. I also know my son will drink his body weight in bottled water and frozen drinks with an odd Red Bull thrown in here and there.
That said, since this is your first cruise and your kids DON'T drink soda, I would not get a package for them. As others have said, you can buy them frozen drinks at any time and just charge it to your SeaPass. If you determine during the cruise that you want to buy them packages after all, you can get it pro-rated for the remainder of the cruise.
I like Travis P's idea of giving each child an "Allowance" to spend.
ETA: RC does not have the soft serve ice cream available 24/7. I have only seen it available from the start of lunch to the start of dinner and there are crew members serving it.
-
Is there a support group for this?
Yes, it's called the Cruise Critic boards. :D
-
The teen program groups are split up as 12-14 and 15-17, but they are often combined when there are fewer kids on the cruise. My daughter was in the older group on our last cruise and our son was in the younger group and many activities were combined. Since your daughter will be just shy of 12, I am pretty sure they will allow her to participate in the 12-14 group. (They allowed it with my son when he was 11)
-
Usually I just use a fanny pack when we are in port or a beach bag if it is a beach day. For our upcoming British Isles cruise, however, it will be very port intensive and we are spending a few days in Amsterdam before the cruise. I bought this bag, which was recommended by a friend (and is very highly rated on Amazon).
-
I've been to all of those ports and St. Kitt's was my least favorite. I'd skip that one. If you snorkel, Barbados has good snorkeling
Sent from my iPhone using Forums
-
Costa does this also. We were wondering why very few people were in line in Copenhagen on our Norwegian fjords cruise--then we learned that most of the passengers had gotten onboard two days earlier in Germany.
Sent from my iPhone using Forums
-
Virgin pina coladas, virgin strawberry daiquiris, Virgin Miami Vice (both of the former in the same glass), to name a few
Sent from my iPhone using Forums
-
Our strategy is just to sit on chairs where there are only towels "reserving" the chairs. Only one time did we have anyone come up to us and say we were in their chairs. I just said, "Oh, sorry, we must be in the wrong row." and moved to two chairs similarly occupied only by towels.
-
I am interested in knowing how much they charge for children if I buy the dining package? I have one child that will eat a fair amount and one that has a sensory and texture disorder that will probably only eat chicken tenders the entire cruise. My other one can certainly find something she will eat. They are 7,9,&11. I hate to pay full price for them but they do not care to go to the kids club. What would my options be?
Kids 6-12 can eat for $10 in the specialty restaurants.
-
Why do you people who feel your so entitled feel everything has to meet your standards of your life and comment on a pizza. If it wasn't pizza it would be something else. I'm so tired of you people and you know who you are, who feel that they must make a comment on everything that they don't like and put it on social media. Do everyone a big favor and enjoy your cruise and keep your opinions to yourself or to your husband or wife. We don't want to hear about every little thing in your life. What did you do before social media. I'll tell you what you did. You shut your pie hole and just kept living and the world was a better place.
Give us all a break and if you don't like something do what we did before social media, nothing. yes i know CC is a forum for all opinions but for once i'm going to tell all of you my opinion. You're on a cruise and this is something that maybe 98% of the population can't do but you're doing it and sure there might be some minor things that go wrong but that's life. Live with it. roll with the punches. Enjoy your cruise and bite your lip when you feel that urge to complain about something so profound like the pizza you feel was made so wrong and just shut up! This is my opinion only but I'm sure you or another social media binge writer will say something negative about what I said so go ahead and make my day.
Hmmm...that's a little harsh! But that's MY opinion. :halo:
One of the reasons I like Cruise Critic and spend so much time here is that I know I will see ALL kinds of opinions--good and bad. I, for one, appreciate hearing when something is particularly good (or particularly bad), but I also know that pretty much everything is subjective and would still withhold judgment until I tried something for myself.
-
Good for Mario! Living his life on his terms--I hope he really and truly feels that he is the happiest guy in the world.
My husband and I have long said that if we won the lottery we would totally do this--at least for a while. ;)
-
Others have mentioned this, as well, but I find the best deals to be had are usually either "last minute" (and the ships are trying to fill all rooms) or traveling at "off" times (i.e., not during holidays and not when kids are off of school). Unfortunately, with kids in college and high school I am in the same boat (haha!) as you, having to vacation when the kids are out of school.
(Also, my son is 16 and is a 6 ft. tall hockey and lacrosse player who also eats everything in sight, so I can totally relate. That said, we always book a quad room and he sleeps in the pullman upper while my 20 year old daughter sleeps on the sleeper sofa that turns into a bed.)
-
-
My favorite was in Tortola just off of Norman Island, then Barbados, then Cozumel. The freighter wreck iff of Aruba was pretty cool also.
Sent from my iPhone using Forums
-
Android 4.4.2
My husband thought he was the last person with a working S5! [emoji846] He's starting to have issues with other apps no longer working or being incompatible. Hopefully that's not the case with you, but it might be.
Sent from my iPhone using Forums
-
I did a search on Barqs website and it said there was no availability within 50 miles of my house.
Now I am craving one now. lol
Bill
Bummer! That's the worst! Interestingly, I KNOW that Barq's products (except red cream soda) are sold at my local Jewel and Meijer, but their locator only shows where they have fountain service near me.
-
I found a great flavor combo on Oasis a few weeks back. Barqs diet cream soda with vanilla.
Unfortunately when I got home I searched high and low and can't find Barqs cream soda anywhere. Maybe it's a southern thing.
Bill
Not just a southern thing. We have it here in the Chicago area, but mostly in larger grocery stores.
-
My husband and I took a 12 day Alaskan cruise on Sun Viking for our honeymoon back in 1994. It was the first cruise for both of us. The Grand midnight buffet was amazing--so amazing that they opened up for photos 30 minutes before people were allowed to partake so you could take photos. Butter sculptures, chocolate sculptures, intricate bread sculptures, ice sculptures, ornate animals fashioned out of fruit and vegetables. It was really something! Some lifelong friends we met on that cruise took a video and set it to the tune of "Long Tall Glasses" and it was perfect! :D
Another thing we noticed on that cruise that cruising back then was decidedly an older person's game. It could have been because it was a 12 day cruise, but I'm not even exaggerating when I say that the only passengers on the ship under 60 were my husband and I and the couple we met, and we were all in our 20's. I am really good at "Name That Tune" games and I was out of luck on that cruise because the songs were mostly from the 1940's! :o
The service in the dining room was really amazing. Perhaps it was because Sun Viking was such a small ship, but the service was top notch and so was the food. We still fondly remember our waiters from that cruise--Prasan and Cecilio.
The maitre d' used to do a "show cooking" dessert like Cherries Jubilee or Bananas Foster that he would do throughout the dining room that was fairly impressive.
To answer your specific questions, in my opinion passengers were more well dressed and well behaved (but that could have been because they were all 60+). The atmosphere was pretty much the same. I would say the passenger interaction was less because, well, everyone else was 60+ and we were in our mid 20's. There were no two-tops and there was only early seating or late seating. We sat at a table with the other young couple and a great couple from Canada who were in their 60's.
We obviously did not visit Labadee on our Alaska cruise, but we did in 1997 on Majesty of the Seas. It was very primitive--not at all the way it is now!
-
$60/day in alcohol for EVERY DAY of a 7 day cruise seems like a LOT!:o:o:o
Do people REALLY drink ~$500 worth of alcohol ($420 + 18% =$495.6) on a cruise?:halo:
JK - It does seem like there are a lot more alcoholics out there than I ever realized:evilsmile: ... also LOL before the PC police try to judge this post
I can't help but notice that you have knocked the Deluxe package in every thread where it comes up and insinuate that the cruisers who purchase it are alcoholics. I don't drink, myself, but I would never dream of being so judgmental about how other people spend their hard earned money on their vacations.
Back to Back on Symphony in June...Drinks Package or Pay as we go...???
in Royal Caribbean International
Posted
I think it really depends on how much you drink. Bear in mind that it's not just alcoholic beverages that are included--you can also get specialty coffee drinks, bottled water, fresh squeezed orange juice at breakfast, soda, non-alcoholic frozen drinks, smoothies, etc. If you are not a big drinker, you might consider the Refreshment package as it includes everything I mentioned except for alcoholic beverages. @TravisP put together a really great Excel chart to help people determine if the various packages were worth it. Perhaps he will re-post it here. :)